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User blog:TheReturnOfTheKing/The Gön and the Zi'vani
I've been facing a lot of issues with the Zi'vani, mainly relating to boredom. So while I madly scramble for any kind of idea, I've come up with an idea for a new race, the Gön, which are based a little (well, a lot) on the Ood from Doctor Who, though not enough to be a total rip-off, I hope. Details pending when timezones align. Orbusubro Don't ya just love palindromes? I'll bet you never realized "racecar" was a palindrome! Anyway, Orbusubro is the homeworld of the Gön. It's taken up by a supercontinent at the moment, one in the process of separating, which means plenty of earthquakes and volcanic activity. I dunno about you, but I like earthquakes and volcanic activity. Well, unless I'm at the receiving end of said earthquakes and volcanic activity. That's when it ceases to be so fun. But yeah, earthquakes and volcanic activity, and not just because I want it. There's a very good reason for it. Genesis Valley and the Dawning Caves Genesis Valley is a rift valley formed as two plates separate, exposing a layer of limestone formed when this area was covered in ocean. The valley allows rain-laden rainclouds from the lush, water-soaked coast into the supercontinent's dry interior. The clouds are funnelled into a narrow area and the water particles clump together, which means it's almost always raining here. Splitting plates means earthquakes, and earthquakes + rain + limestone = caves. Lots and lots of caves. Layer upon later of labyrinthine caves form, grow too large, cave in and are replaced over the course of five million years. The Dawning Caves put Carslbad Caverns and the mega-caves of Borneo to shame, if you'll permit the terra-centric analogy. You could fit Port Arcoris in one of them with room to spare, and the confusing downward and horizontal spirals go on for so long you couldn't find your way out without Ariadne's String, a map, a compass, a drill and psychokinetic abilities. They are lit by bioluminescent microbes and lava flows, rocked by seismic instability and underground volcanoes (which I imagine would look just awesome!) These mad tunnels are home to Troglodytes, among the last of an ancient group of life-forms known as the Hexapods, so named because of their six limbs. Hexapods have been outcompeted by Tripods and Tetrapods over the years and now exist only in remote locales. They rule these caves, from the herbivores who graze the glowing bacteria on the wall to the carnivores who pursue them to the carnivores who chase the carnivores to the opportunists who couldn't care less what they eat as long as they don't get eaten themselves. To survive and navigate these caves, you need your wits about you. You need to be flexible, both mentally and physically. You need problem-solving skills. You need to navigate in the dark. You need to stop referring to yourself in the second person. So, what is this creature that can survive in this bizarre environment? What life-form will be driven to the razor's edge of natural selection just to know it'll live to see tomorrow? Hang on, you don't know? Didn't you read the title of this blog post? Seriously? Jk, but yes, I'm referring to the Gön. The Gön - An Experiment in How Far Sapient Life Can Get From Human Standards of Normalcy, Just How Weird Alien Life Probably Is and How Long I Can Make This Sentence OK, I'm still working on the final draft of the drawing, but the current one looks almost like an Illithid that got sat on by, then swallowed a, medium-sized elephant. I'll post it at some point. Anyway, to survive the Dawning Caves, the Gön had to adapt both physically and mentally, as did the primates in the colourful and complex jungles of Earth, the dolphins and octopi in the ever-demanding and immense oceans, the crows in the shifting and changing temperate forests. Point is, a difficult environment demands adaptation in mind and body. But the biggest challenge that drove the Gön from smart to sapient was when the Caves started to collapse around 3.5 million years ago. It was inevitable, really. Put a bunch of caves in an area with earthquakes and volcanic activity, and eventually they're going to cave in, destroyed by the same processes that created them. The entire cave system has actually collapsed several times, each time replaced by a new one, but this was a cycle occurring over hundreds of thousands of years. The ancestors of the Gön had an average lifespan of 40-50 Terran years. (Don't ask me about Orbusubroan years. WIP) So essentially, they were homeless, the next set of caves millennia in the future, Hexapods in a world ruled by Tripods and Quadrapods. But when apes found their jungles replaced by savannah, did they give up and go extinct? No - they rose to evolution's challenge, just as the ancestors of the Gön did. About 3 million years ago comes the first evidence of tool use, and by 2.5 million years ago they were starting to use fire. The final push they needed was when the Genesis Valley region entered a period of serious volcanic activity, forcing them out into the unforgiving deserts at the heart of the supercontinent. A dozen species went in. One came out, the direct ancestor of the one known today as the Gön. History and Culture Their history, for the most part, is unwritten. Their civilization probably began on the rain-soaked coast. Contrary to popular belief, a supercontinent is generally not entirely covered in desert. The coast takes the brunt of the oceanic currents in the world-encompassing ocean and is generally very lush. I think. I'm not an expert in meteorology, but the point is, there's copious amounts of water. Coastal mountain ranges will probably have many natural resources, such as metals, plant life, building materials and various forms of food. So Gön civilization begins on the coast and slowly ventures inwards. At some point, the whole supercontinent is more or less united under one flag. The culture of the Gön is probably one of their most unique points, mainly because they don't actually have one. How that happened began with a religious movement that went a little bit too far. The Selfless Path At one point in their history, a religious movement began to gain ground. It was known as the Selfless Path. What it advocates is that a Gön will be guaranteed it's place in heaven only by being selfless, compassionate and helpful. It quickly became their most popular religion. However, some Gön went so far as to willingly make themselves slaves and servants. This was a very popular move, to the point where there were far more slaves than masters. After a shake-up at the top similar to our Protestant Reformation, the Selfless Path split in two, those who willingly gave up their freedom, possessions and culture to serve another and those who took selflessness and compassion to less extreme levels. The two continued to diverge and really got to hate each other, to the point of a near civil war. Finally, the government decided to ban the so-called Selfless Path of Servitude and exiled them. The Servitors were sent to colonize Orbusubro's two moons and the other planets while the followers of the Selfless Path of Compassion, or Truepaths, remained on Orbusubro. The Servitors were very unhappy, because they had nobody to serve. Therefore, they began searching for other forms of life so they could entrust themselves to them, adopting their cultures and serving their population. However, there were those among them who split to form a third sect, the Selfless Path of Truth. They believed that to reach heaven, first they had to find it, in a literal and metaphorical path of exploration and discovery. They became known as the Pathfinders and have maintained a way of life similar to that of the residents of the Roving Flotilla. Some Pathfinders have never stood on a planet. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anyway, that's the current idea. I hope you enjoy them as much as Orbusubro enjoyed bringing them to you! Here's the page link: Gön Category:Blog posts